Hear again this, our petitionin the hymn of our changing flesh:bring flowers of the rarest and blossoms the fairest…

CARVED HEAD AT JERPOINT

Seen at first, it’s a mason’s whim: two long and delicate lines chiselled to perfect balance each side of his apple-round cheeks.

But this man’s entwined in no Eden: look again - his arms are twisted and tied to a crossbeam strapped to his shoulders so his neck muscles scream for release,

drowning out the sweet pulse of forgetting of self in the stretched hands of praise of St. Kevin nestling the blackbird in the shape of prayer’s cruciform.

No chicks can fly from the other’s stretched palms forced to agony by human decree: his yoke scores the flesh of each century still seeking substance in enmity.

DORSET

Its hills appease me like the negotiated comfort feeds of a hardy child nurtured on thick and thin who will spend her life seeking such button studs in time as this cornfield by brown lea under a wind-sharpened sun, and finding them, wonder, how is here a familiar sight?

EXPOSURE

The first aerial photograph taken of us unawares beavered us verso and recto into view -

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Born premature, with a hole in the heart, on 15 October 1954, to Polish-German, delicatessen-running parents in Melbourne, Australia, Peter Bakowski fell in love with the map of the world and reading at an early age. Peter and his wife, Helen, a clothes-maker, travel to Europe annually, particularly Paris and most recently Berlin. 2019 represents

WHALE BONE LAMP Annabelle Obscura wears a widow’s bun Knotted ‘round a hook of whale bone That her young Captain had Carved with the marks of saints In a peculiar kind of Braille That felt like the lost promises Of a forgotten summer land Her fingers leave red marks Like the phases of the moon

IN THE GARDEN Searching for a herb named solace; they say it grows in hard ground; I am sure it used to grow here, somewhere. It goes with nearly everything. Perhaps it is nowhere to be found. Better than heart’s ease, growing among honesty and patience. THE HUNGOVER FOREST (In memory of naturalist Gerald Durrell,

The Blue Nib is a print and digital platform that publishes and promotes the work of established and emerging poets and writers. Main outputs are the quarterly Blue Nib Magazine which is sold through subscription and is available as a print magazine or digitally on the website and via download. The magazine features the work of both emerging and established poets and writers.Find out more